Joe Dumars said the difficult part of the Detroit Pistons' big trade this week was calling to disclose the deal to Tayshaun Prince and Austin Daye.AP Photo

AUBURN HILLS -- Joe Dumars had been talking trade with the Memphis Grizzlies for a month. At first, it was "a bigger deal" that was proposed and didn't work out, the Detroit Pistons' president of basketball operations said today, but those talks indicated his willingness to deal.

So Sunday night, when the phone rang again with a new proposal while the Pistons were on the team bus en route to the Orlando airport after beating the Magic, the atmosphere of change already was brewing.

"All the teams on the phone said, 'OK, are we calling our players right now?'" Dumars recalled. "Toronto wanted to know if they needed to call Jose and Ed Davis; I needed to know if it's time to call Tayshaun and Austin."

Everyone agreed it was time.

"That's always the toughest part of the trade," Dumars said. "You talk about it, you go back and forth, you spend hours on the phone, but at that moment when you've got to pick up and dial a number, call, get Lawrence (Frank) on the phone and say, 'Pull Tayshaun and Austin off the floor if they're on the floor, I've got to inform them of a trade,' that's always tough. It's never easy."

As for whether the Pistons are done dealing after being involved in a sizeable trade that also sent Rudy Gay from Memphis to Toronto, with the Feb. 21 NBA trade deadline still nearly three weeks distant, Dumars said he doesn't know.

"I know the phone's not going to stop ringing," he said. "I know we won't stop talking to people. But to say whether we're done or not, it's just based on what's put out there."

Dumars acknowledged that he had tried to trade for Calderon "several times" previously, and came close on a couple of occasions.

He therefore said he regards Calderon as having a greater value than just the expiring contract he brings to Detroit, which frees up another $10.5 million in salary-cap space when the eighth-year guard becomes a free agent after this season.

"This is someone that we would have some interest in staying going forward," Dumars said.

The last time the Pistons saw Calderon, he was dropping 17 assists -- nine in the first quarter alone -- against just two turnovers during a Raptors win Dec. 19 in Toronto.

"When you sit there and you watch a guy drop (17) assists on your team, and you see what it does for their team, you look at that and you envision your team having something like that," Dumars said.

"I believe that having two guards that can handle the ball, that can score, that can pass, that can initiate your offense -- I think that's probably worked in Detroit before, if you've got guys that can do that," said Dumars, Isiah Thomas' backcourt running mate on two NBA championship teams.

"Our message to Brandon is simply this: It's easy to play with another guard in the backcourt with you that can do all the things that you do," Dumars added. "It just kind of makes you a two-headed monster. It's going to allow him to look to score more but it's not like we're going to take the ball out of his hands completely. We're just going to share the duties in the backcourt with this guy and we think it's going to be a good fit for him."

The Calderon trade creates more than $30 million in cap space for the Pistons next season.

It was consistent with Dumars' declaration a month ago that the Pistons wouldn't make a trade that negatively affects their cap flexibility.

Now, to large degree, that concern about protecting flexibility has been mitigated -- "Not just flexibility," Dumars said today, when asked if all his decisions now will be based on maintaining that freedom, a clear shift in position, tilted by the Calderon deal -- so that the Pistons will be in full-fledged buyer's mode when trades and free agency re-open next summer, if not before the Feb. 21 deadline, should the right deal materialize.

All that talk about fiscal flexibility is getting closer to a shopping spree with each passing day.

Uncommitted salary space allows teams to buy free agents, yes, but with the player protections available to teams wishing to re-sign their own free agents, the even greater value in financial freedom is how it can grease trades.

"What cap space does now is more than allow you to target free agents," Dumars said. "It allows you to be creative in acquiring guys and adding them to your team."